Bare
by narcissmy
Summary: Joanne POV, the anniversary of Angel's birthday. The penance for our luck is paid in watching the people we love be dragged away from us. "I'm so sorry, cause you're wide awake and planning parties now for all the fools, who've gone and left you bare."


**Title:** Bare

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** Sexual contact – femmeslash!

**Author:** Narcissmy

**Disclaimer**: Matt Nathanson's lyrics (Are we sensing a pattern here?) and Jonathan Larson :)

**Summary:** Joanne's POV, anniversary of Angel's death. Songfic!

**A/N: **This wasn't based on the song originally, I just realised how fitting the lyrics where afterwards. Enjoy :)

_In the light,_

_In the daylight it's all wrong,  
To revel in your memory,  
The smell of your body,  
And the seconds that it kept me warm._

**She is naked and beautiful.**

Her hair is thrown out against the pillows, scoring vibrant paths in the polyester. Even when she's sleeping, she screams disarray. One hand is twisted in her dark locks, the other fisted in rumpled sheets. Her knee nudges a stray cushion closer to the edge of the bed, constantly keeping it in suspense as to whether or not it will tumble to join its brothers that are scattered over the floor.

It is the middle of December in New York, and she refuses to sleep with any clothes on.

I trace around her belly button with my thumb, skin shades so contrasting, and she smiles in sleep. I answer with an unseen smile so wide it hurts my face to hold it. The hand not preoccupied with smoothing the strands of her hair scuttles across the bed sheet to curl around the top of my thigh, fingers rubbing circles into flesh. She's freezing.

As soon as I tuck the covers over her, and her breathing becomes rhythmic and deep, she crooks one leg outside of the blankets, painted toenails seeking the cool of the exposed blankets against the flush of her skin – warmed by my affection for her but ultimately still seeking some small rebellion.

I wonder if Mark ever had the genius to film her like this. There's a small spark of jealousy when I think of the reels of film that could be stashed somewhere, encapsulating her when she's at her most peaceful, most dormant, yet somehow still brimming with sleepy energy. It is the only time you will ever see Maureen understated.

Her head rolls to the side, exposing the pale column of her neck that leads up to a jaw strictly too strong to be feminine. Inviting. It draws me closer until I am running brown lips against milk white skin, soft pink tongue tracing that striking jaw, slipping up to her earlobe. I wrinkle my nose at the taste of cheap metal. She still has her overly large earrings in. I can't ever recall her taking them out before sex. She's too much of a goer, Maureen. Always too eager to set the ball rolling.

Plus, it takes me so goddamn long to peel off those favoured leather pants of hers that I really don't have the time to take off jewellery.

Without turning toward me, I feel her hand press against the back of my neck, rubbing lightly at the start of my hairline and bringing my mouth back to her ear. She smirks with her eyes closed, lips a little swollen and mouth too wide to be classed as conventionally beautiful.

She turns her face towards mine and she's blinking morning and arousal into her body. Her lips pucker, and she bites her lip in a way I know is a warning of something infuriating to come. She whispers "pookie" against the soft flesh of my lips. Her voice is infused with sleep and rugged with sunrise, her eyes squinting awake, and even if she's got last night's red lipstick on her teeth, it doesn't matter because I've probably got a matching shade on my inner thighs.

_And you said,  
In all your tragedy,  
You'd rather hide in mine,  
Oh so warm,  
So sad you said I made your whole world shine._

Maureen doesn't have a reverse gear. Everything about her is angular (Disregarding her breasts and her ass,) so sometimes this can get a bit painful for me, but I don't mind that her hip bones could be classed as weapons because skin-to-skin contact is definitely a bonus when your girlfriend has kicked the coverlet to the bottom of the bed so she can see you. All of you. And it's fucking New York in December. It's a wonder to me that her hands can be so cold when her mouth is so hot. And suddenly I'm distracted from my fingers finding my way to the nipple piercing I always knew she'd get someday (complete with a coy smile and the tiny "j" charm hanging from her navel piercing because she thought it'd sweeten the deal,) that I pretend grosses me out but is actually kind of a turn on. I just didn't want her to get it because she doesn't do bras and you can see it through her top. I didn't want to be responsible for having to defend myself on a GBH charge for killing a young, flirty waitress with wandering eyes or a delivery boy with a slack jaw.

She's unashamed as she bites the flesh of my breasts without apologising for it. She adores me cruelly and I make a show of rubbing at the flesh there, and then she's slapping my hand away to moisten the skin with the slick muscle sitting in her mouth that has gotten us into so much trouble before now. It's cold in the apartment despite the heating and the only points of warmth on my whole body is her quick mouth at my nipple and the desire I can feel between my legs. She always riles me up too quickly and I'm always too eager for her, but it doesn't matter, because she's slung her leg up over my hip and pulled me closer with her strong thighs and then there's another source of warmth that doesn't belong to my own body low on my abdomen.

This is the part where I forget that I'm not as confident as Maureen when it comes to my body. Because for all her off the wall behaviour, she's solid – albeit slippery – beneath my fingers, and all my insecurities trip down the length of her thigh and are buried inside of her along with my fingers. Maureen is not a loud lover, but she lets you know when it's hot and when it's not and that's all you can ever ask for, really. She's teasing me, fingertips barely grazing my sensitivity, and I'm eager, swollen for it. Everything that I love about her has slipped to drop a reminder to plant itself right between my thighs and my legs are spreading of their own accord to tempt her hand to move a little quicker, delve a little deeper. She complies, and for a few moments the only sounds that reverberate off of damp skin and sticky fingers are our laboured breathing and the slick sounds of...sex, really. Her breath catches when my lips find the juncture to her neck and shoulder to bite down on as my body shudders, and she pouts but can't stop her hips rocking a little more frantically as she feels me tighten around her fingers.

_And I'm coming down,  
Hitting ground,  
Breaking open,  
Twisted around,  
The sweet sound of the lies you told,  
When you were broken._

Afterwards, she kisses the tip of my nose sweetly, eyes closing against the daybreak infiltrating the curtains.

"I hate it when you do that." She states, appointing herself little spoon, scooting back into me, pulling my arms around her and skilfully bringing the duvet upwards with just her toes. I know she means the fact that I bit to suppress my noise, rather than that I bit her at all. She presses her freezing toes against my warm calves.

"I hate it when _you_ do _that_." I reply, and she giggles, giggles turning into heaving laughs that evolve into racking sobs.

And I knew this was coming. She turns around to bury her face in my chest, and her face is wet with tears and I am rocking her as I would a child. I am telling her that she didn't forget, and thats it's fine, but it's not. Because a year ago today she lost her best friend.

A year ago today Collins died in her arms just like Angel died in his, and I could do nothing but watch from the foot of a hospital bed and wait for the moment she came down off autopilot and needed someone to catch her. I was getting better at predicting triggers, and the obvious events like birthdays and anniversaries were clear indicators of mood dips.

"I forgot." She whimpered, and her eyes are shining with guilt. I feel bad that I've desecrated the moment by encouraging her passions this morning. Granted, her every waking thought on this day doesn't have to be about him, but I've always been too independent for a best friend. I can't really relate, and I let her have her space without deserting her on days like these.

"We didn't forget baby. We celebrated." And we had. Her mouth is defeated against mine, but my lips rub warmth and hope and love through to hers, and when I pull away she's smiling a little.

"It was us baby. We were the lucky ones." It is a statement she has said before, but it's voiced as a question. We have escaped Aids.

"Yes we are." I state, feeling the need to make this statement relevant to the present tense, even though I know that this won't always be the case. I get to wondering who exactly defined the term luck. Although we escaped the epidemic, we watch as our friends fade to shades of grey and puffs of smoke when they're cremated. Piles of ashes were a person once stood.

It seems we are being punished.

The penance for our luck is paid in watching the people we love be dragged away from us.

_Gone away,  
And I'm so sorry,  
Cause you're wide awake and  
Planning parties now for all the fools,  
Who've gone and left you bare._

**So we cling to each other.**


End file.
